


To Grow With Time

by DarkJediQueen



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Discussion of sexual assault, Hate Crime, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-25 12:13:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16660959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkJediQueen/pseuds/DarkJediQueen
Summary: Aaron didn't realize that hiring someone to fill a hole in the team was going to fill the void in his life that he hadn't realized needed to be filled.





	To Grow With Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [g_love99](https://archiveofourown.org/users/g_love99/gifts).
  * Inspired by [To Grow With Time Art](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16614452) by [g_love99](https://archiveofourown.org/users/g_love99/pseuds/g_love99). 



> **Year** : Fall 2012 (Season 7) Onward
> 
> **Spoilers** : Up Through Season Seven
> 
> **Beta** : Grammarly & TJLaurentide
> 
> As soon as I saw the art, a story spawned in my head that demanded to be written. This is what came from that. Thank you so much g_love99 for sharing your art with me and letting me write this story.

Aaron Hotchner knew that the newest member of the team was introverted in a way that might not help him get in touch with the rest of the members of the team, but he was perfect for the job. Given the list of what he had been doing for White Collar crimes in the years that he had been there since he had graduated the Academy, Aaron was pretty sure that he would do great on the team. 

Spencer Reid had clicked with Aaron right away. That had shocked Aaron a great deal as he didn't make friends easily; his reserved manner, as well as the fact that he was the boss, made it hard for anyone to open up to him. Getting the invitation to Reid's for dinner the weekend that Jessica had Jack visiting the extended Brooks’ family was welcome, if unexpected. 

"This is a nice place," Aaron said as he looked around Reid's apartment. 

"Thanks. I got an excellent deal on it because the person who had it before had left it trashed. The landlord didn't want to have the place empty, and I didn't mind having workers in and out." Reid came out of the kitchen with a glass of wine in each hand. "You like reds right?"

"I like any wine," Aaron said. He took the glass handed to him and sat down. 

"Kid-free weekends are very strange, aren't they?" Reid asked as he sat down in the chair opposite Aaron. 

"They are." Aaron knew that Reid was trying to connect with him using the most obvious in: Jack. It was an excellent profiling trick, and really it would work on anyone. Jack had met Reid once and had liked him. Reid had been really good with Jack, which was shocking given the fact that Reid had no significant other. 

Aaron heard a key in a lock, and he frowned. He turned just as Reid was standing up to walk to the door. The door opened and a young lady entered. She looked to be about fifteen years old. 

"Sweetie?" Reid asked.

"Oh, I just forgot to grab my hoodie before we left for the weekend." The girl grabbed the hoodie from the coat rack, and it was then that she saw Aaron. "Sorry, I didn't realize you were entertaining a friend."

"No, this is just..." Reid smiled at her and waved to Aaron. "Maggie Lynn, I'd like you to meet Aaron Hotchner, my boss. Hotch, this is Magdalena Reid, my daughter." 

Aaron was speechless, but as Maggie Lynn walked around the couch to shake his hand, he pulled himself out of it and held out his hand. Her shake was firm, just like her father's. The math meant that Reid had got a girl pregnant at fifteen or thereabouts. That was something that hadn't fit into the profile Aaron had made of him when he had interviewed him for the position that had been vacated by Prentiss. 

"Sorry Hotch, maybe next time we can talk more. Gotta go, Papa." Maggie Lynn kissed her father on the cheek and then was gone. Reid locked the door again and turned with a fond smile on his face. It fell though the moment that he took in Aaron's demeanor.

"Hotch?"

"How do you have a teenage daughter?"

Reid smiled at Aaron and waved for him to sit down again. Aaron drained his wine glass, and Reid took it to fill again. When Reid came back out of the kitchen, he had the bottle with him and two full glasses. 

"When I got to Caltech at almost thirteen, I made friends with the girl who was in the room next to me. It was a co-ed dorm, but I was put on the floor with the girls as there was another girl who was just a year older than me starting as a freshman as well. Easier to keep us together and Caltech wasn't putting her on the floor with guys. I didn't mind it, I mean all of them treated me like a little brother. Joselyn and I got really, really close. We had a lot of the same science classes except she was going to become an astrophysicist. I still wasn't sure what I wanted to be. Two school years later we were going home for the summer, which for me was Vegas and she was in Northern California, but she told me that she was going to come and visit me. I didn't believe it, but then there she was one morning. We spent the day together and then that night while we were lying in my bed, her under the covers and me above them she told me that she was dying. A rare disease that would take her life before she was twenty, but first it was going to rob her of her ability to have kids. She wanted a kid, and she wanted to raise that kid as much as she could before she died." 

Reid lifted his wine glass and drank about half of it before he set it down and walked over to a shelf that had a few books on it. Aaron had seen the picture frame but hadn't looked at it as it was facing the window, and the chair that was there. Reid picked up the picture frame and walked over to Aaron, handing it over. There was a picture of a very beautiful young lady in the bottom right-hand corner and above her a picture of her while pregnant. Above that was a somewhat current picture of Spencer, and taking up over half of the frame was a picture of Maggie Lynn that was also current. 

"Joselyn was my best friend. I am pretty sure that with time I would have fallen helplessly in love with her, but we didn't have that time. Still, even with dealing with her sickness and raising a toddler alone after Joselyn passed, I still wouldn't change it for anything."

Aaron wasn't sure what to say. He handed the picture frame back, and Reid looked at it with a smile before he put it back where it belonged. 

"I'm very private, but I would have assumed that HR would have told you about Maggie Lynn."

"No. There is only a spot on the application for a spouse. I guess it's an oversight about children."

"Well, look at it this way, not many in the BAU have kids."

A knock on the door meant that dinner had arrived. Aaron was looking forward to eating as it would mean that he wouldn't have to talk as much. He would have time to absorb the information that he had learned about the youngest member of the team.

* * *

The first time that the team did anything outside of work, it was a cookout at Morgan's place. Aaron had Jack with him, giving Jessica a full night off. She had plans with friends and told Aaron not to call before noon the next day. Aaron never begrudged her the time that she wanted to herself. He asked a lot of her, but she volunteered. Aaron knew though that it was a way to keep a hold of her sister in the only way that she could. 

"Daddy!" Jack yelled as Morgan chased him around the large backyard. 

Aaron turned to find where his son was and got to see Jack crash into Maggie Lynn. She had just entered the backyard and was dressed in a sleeveless purple shirt and a rainbow-colored kilt. Morgan grabbed Jack and put the boy behind him. Aaron started to walk over, wondering where Reid was. 

"Who are you?"

"Oh, wow, really?" Maggie Lynn asked with a smirk on her face. That smirk was all Reid and Aaron was a little shocked that Morgan didn't know it. Reid did it to him a lot. "Agent Derek Morgan is afraid of a fifteen-year-old genius in a kilt?"

"Who are you?" Morgan asked again. 

"Maggie Lynn, come on in," Aaron said as he held out his hand toward her. She grabbed it and slipped up to stand beside Aaron, he hand tucked into Aaron's elbow. "Maggie Lynn, this is as you know Agent Derek Morgan. Morgan, meet Magdalena Reid."

"Oh!" Garcia came over and held out her hand to Maggie Lynn, but she didn't offer it back. "Boy Genius never talked about a sister."

"Why would he?" Maggie Lynn asked. She looked utterly flabbergasted the idea that anyone would think her a sister. 

"Why don't we wait to talk about that after Reid has got here. I'll introduce you around. Where is he by the way?"

"On the phone. A case of his from White Collar Crimes is going to court Monday, and the prosecutor wants to make sure that she has the case down. She's called a few times over the past week."

Aaron introduced Maggie Lynn to everyone, and Jack seemed taken with her, wanting to sit beside her. Aaron could understand the feeling because he felt just about the same way about Reid himself. 

Ten minutes later, Reid entered the backyard with a bag of stuff that he walked right to the food table and set out. Aaron saw that there were ice packs involved and walked over to help him. 

"The team is chomping at the bit to know exactly who Maggie Lynn is," Aaron said as he picked up the next thing in the sack. Reid set down the ice packs, and then Aaron set down the dessert dish on it. 

"She didn't introduce herself?"

"I introduced her as Magadelan Reid, but when Garcia asked about a little sister, Maggie Lynn acted like she was a little affronted."

"Mags gets a little upset when people question her parentage. I meant to come in first, but I had to take that call. I hope it's the last one. The prosecutor has everything and more needed to put the lady away for life, so I told her to go on up instead of drawing attention by sitting in the car with me. I wasn't sure how nosy Morgan's neighbors are."

"Very."

"So, Reid, introduce us to the lovely lady here in your life," Dave said.

Aaron glared at Dave because the wording left something to be desired and it was enough to rile Morgan up a little. 

"Magdalena Lynn, introduce yourself properly."

"You are no fun. They are profilers, they should be able to figure it out," Maggie Lynn said. She crossed her arms over her body and stuck her tongue out at Spencer. Jack started to laugh and leaned toward Maggie Lynn as he did it. 

Aaron wondered how that little crush was going to go over.

"My name is Magdalena Lynn Reid, daughter of Spencer Reid and Joselyn Reid." 

Aaron held in the gasp because Reid had never said that he married Joselyn. Morgan looked at Reid a little shocked while everyone else just kind of stared at Maggie Lynn. She was ignoring them all and was turned toward Jack, talking to him and showing him something. It took a few seconds to see that it was a Kindle. 

"So, that's my daughter. She's fifteen going on thirty." Reid's smile was bright as he talked about her. There was a lot of love in his eyes. "Sometime when I feel like it, I'll tell you the story of how I got her but not now. I am a widower though, so please don't ask about that either." 

The topic was closed, and Aaron made sure that the team understood that. Garcia looked like she wanted to push, but with a shake of Aaron's head and a stern glare she stopped. It probably wouldn't prevent her from hacking into his file to read it or to find whatever she could from other sources, but Aaron didn't have a way of stopping that. 

"She said she was a genius, not a shock given her parentage on the paternal side," Morgan said as a sort of an icebreaker. 

"She's at GWU, third year working on three degrees. She's doing one in mathematics, astrophysics, and pre-law."

"That's a wide variety." JJ sat down beside Will as she talked. 

"She's taking mathematics I think to have a degree like me, and her mom was an astrophysicist. She really likes law though; I think it will stick." Reid sat down beside where Aaron had taken a seat. Morgan had made a large picnic table that fit the whole team and family when needed, so it was nice to all be at the same table, even if some of the shouting made it a little hard. 

"So a genius from both sides?" Dave asked. 

"Yes." 

"What do you want to drink, Papa? I'm getting me and Jack some tea." Maggie Lynn appeared behind Aaron and Reid as she asked the question and it gave Aaron a little bit of a start. 

"Tea, unsweet please," Spencer said. 

"Okay." 

There wasn't any conversation as Maggie Lynn walked over to the table that had all of the drinks on them. Morgan got up to help her but as she picked up the four drinks, she kind of glared at him. Morgan laughed and raised his hands with a smile. Aaron was trying to figure out who got the fourth drink when she wiggled between him and Reid to set down the two of them. 

"Half and half for you, right Hotch?" 

"Yes, thank you." Aaron picked up the glass and took a sip. She smiled at him and walked back with her and Jack's drinks. There was a table right beside the chair, so she set them both down. Jack crawled out of the chair to allow Maggie Lynn to sit down again before he got back in, right into her lap. 

"That's kind of adorable," Garcia said. 

"Yes, it is," Reid said with a smile at Aaron. 

Aaron felt his heart flutter a little at the smile and he knew that like Jack he was fucked when it came to the Reid family and having a crush. Aaron had been trying for weeks to remind himself that he was too old for a crush, especially on someone who was over fifteen years younger than himself, but his stupid heart wasn't listening to him. 

Reid acted no differently than he did at work and Aaron wondered about that. He was different than he had been that day at his apartment, but was that just because Reid felt more sure about himself when it was just one on one? Or was it different because it was Aaron? Those thoughts plagued Aaron for the rest of the day. 

* * *

"No, Jessica, it's fine. I'll call Garcia and see if she can pick him up. It's not your fault that you have the flu." Aaron said a few more things to help settle down his sister-in-law before he hung up the phone. Aaron rubbed at the bridge of his nose. The case was dependent on Garcia finding out a lot of things, and so it would hurt them a little if he had to pull Garcia away to get Jack from school, but there was no other option. Henry and Will were in New Orleans visiting family. Aaron had no one else that he trusted to go to the school and pick up Jack. 

"Hotch?" Reid called out. 

Aaron turned to see him standing in the room with the door shut. Aaron had been pretty sure he had closed it when he had entered the room. He was a little upset that he had not noticed the genius entering the room. Too focused on figuring out things to do with Jack's care.

"Maggie Lynn is all caught up on schoolwork. She's looking forward to a weekend with no school hanging over her head. If you call the school, she can go and pick him up, and they can hang at your place until we get home from the case. She has her college ID as well as a State Issued ID."

"I couldn't impose on her," Aaron said. 

"It's not like Jack will mind, and Mags has told me that she wouldn't mind watching Jack if you ever needed her to. I just hadn't offered because I know Jessica watches him." Reid looked nervous offering it. Aaron could understand that. If anything happened to Jack while Maggie Lynn was watching him, Reid would feel horrible. Aaron wouldn't hold it against him, but Reid didn't know Aaron well enough to know that. 

"Jessica's got the flu, and the last time that Jack was around her with it, he was sick for ages, even though he gets the flu shot. So, I'll gladly take you up on that if nothing else to stop her from getting both him and me sick. I'll call the school. Give me the ID numbers on her State Issued ID please." Aaron was pretty sure that Spencer knew them. Even though Spencer was young when he had Maggie Lynn, he was a pro at parenting at that point. Just seeing him with Maggie Lynn at the cookout showed it. Aaron was pretty sure that Spencer kept a better eye on Maggie Lynn than Aaron had on Jack. It was all about trust though. Aaron had been around the team more with Jack and knew them all well enough to trust that they wouldn't allow Jack to get hurt; Reid didn't have that luxury. 

"Sure," Reid said before he rattled off the ID. Aaron wrote it down and looked up at Reid with a smile on his face. "I'll call Maggie Lynn. Does Jack have a key to your place?"

"He does, but why don't the two of them just stop for things at my place and stay at yours? Jack's been wanting a sleepover with Maggie Lynn at your place. He's bugged me about it for weeks, but we've worked on cases over the weekends."

"I'll let Mags and Jack decide where they want to stay for the weekend." 

"That sounds good. Jack knows where the stash of cash is for food. I keep probably more than is needed there, but I don't like Jessica Not having money to take care of Jack and having to use her own. Maggie Lynn can take some to pay for her babysitting him."

"Oh, no. Maggie Lynn already knows what she wants as payment for watching Jack, and I'll let her tell you what that is."

Aaron raised an eyebrow, but all Reid did was smile at him. 

It was two more days on the case, and when it was said and done, Aaron wanted to drink to forget. It was late Saturday night, or Sunday morning depending on how one looked at it, before Aaron was walking through the doors of his house. He found that the entire living room had been taken over by more blankets than Aaron was sure that he owned. The TV was on, but it was just muted light through blankets. 

"Your influence?"

"What's the fun in playing with your imagination if you can't have a blanket castle?" Reid asked before yawning so much that his jaw popped. "You'll find every single bed stripped so we might as well get changed for bed and see what they made us for beds inside of there." 

Reid hefted his go bag and started for the guest bathroom. Aaron followed just as far as the steps before going up to his bedroom. He found that Reid was right. Every single bed was stripped, including Aaron's. There was not a stitch of linen in the closet for his bed either. The calls from Jack at night said that Maggie Lynn was the best babysitter in the world and Jack demanded that she be allowed to watch him one weekend a month, her schoolwork depending. Aaron still wondered what that would cost him, but if she would do it, Aaron would do it. It would lessen the burden on Jessica. There was also the fact that being around a genius like Maggie Lynn couldn't harm Jack and only help keep him interested in school. 

By the time that Aaron got back downstairs in his pajama pants and an old T-shirt from a marathon on, Reid was opening a door in the blanket castle that Aaron hadn't even realized was a door. Reid smiled and waved Aaron in first. The inside was massive and open. Aaron looked a the TV to see that it was on a BBC nature documentary of some kind before he searched for his kid. 

Jack and Maggie Lynn were asleep in separate rooms. There were four in total, and Aaron found his bedding that had been on his bed piled in one room, ready for him to sleep on. The room to the far right was made up with the guest bedding, and it was ready for Reid. It was ingenious, the layout of the castle. Aaron was surprised at how well it was held up and couldn't wait until morning when he could appreciate it better. 

Sometime in the night, Jack crawled into bed with Aaron and cuddled into him. 

Morning dawned, and despite sleeping on the floor for even the time that he did, Aaron wasn't sore. He took note of the fact that Jack was not in bed with him anymore. In fact, he couldn't hear any breathing in the blanket castle with him. Aaron stretched well before he got up, checking each of the rooms to find all three empty. Aaron exited the castle, and the smell of coffee and bacon hit him. His stomach rolled a little, but he couldn't blame Reid for what he didn't know. Aaron walked into the kitchen to find Jack seated on the counter beside the fridge with a bowl of something in his lap that he was stirring and counting. Reid was at the stove, and Maggie was cutting fruit at the table. It was domestic in a way that made Aaron's heartache. It wasn't going to help the crush he had going on Ried at all. 

"Daddy, we are making pancakes, turkey bacon, and fruit salad."

Aaron smiled at Jack, his stomach settling a little at the turkey bacon. "That sounds really good. What kind of pancakes?"

"Chocolate pecan peach," Maggie Lynn said before she set down the knife to scoop up the fruit and add it to the bowl. 

"How did you sleep, Hotch?" Reid asked without turning to look at him. 

"I slept pretty well actually." Aaron had because he didn't feel as tired as he should given how late they got in. He still wanted coffee and a lot of it. Aaron walked toward the pot to see that it was empty. 

"There is a latte for you," Maggie Lynn said as she pointed to where there was a carryout tray for drinks. Aaron saw that there was on beside it with Jack's name on it. "Jack got a caramel Brule white hot chocolate."

"How long have you and Jack been awake?" Aaron asked as he picked up his coffee. He pulled the splash stick from it and took a sip. It was a hazelnut latte. Aaron laughed as it was his favorite when he indulged in a latte. 

"The coffee shop two blocks down opens at four, but the grocery store doesn't open until six. We walked to the store to get the groceries and then after that went to get coffee for everyone. It's what we did yesterday, just at Papa's place. It's what Papa and I did until I moved out. Every Saturday morning Papa and I would walk to get what we wanted to eat for the day from the store and then get coffee and come home. We would repeat that on Sunday as well as gets Monday's breakfast. Then on the way home from work on Monday, Papa would stop at the store and get the groceries for the week based on what we picked to eat for the week." 

"That sounds like a nice little ritual," Aaron said. 

"Yeah, so Maggie and I got a little bit of extra fruit, and she and I are going to make yogurt cups for us for breakfast this week, Dad."

"Yogurt cups?" Aaron asked. 

"Here," Maggie said as she walked to the sink to wash her hands before going to the fridge. She pulled out a stack of three containers. Inside the first was plain looking yogurt and in the middle was a selection of fruit while the top looked like it had granola. She put it back, and Aaron saw that there were three more in there. Aaron knew that he didn't have those containers before that, so he wondered where Maggie Lynn had got them. "Papa and I did things like this all the time. It made mornings easy when I was living there, and I do it still for school."

"Next weekend, Dad, Maggie is going to show me how to do overnight oatmeal. Then you won't have to cook during the week if you don't want to. We can spend more morning time together." 

Aaron liked cooking for Jack but there were some mornings that it was a little bit of a chore and having more time to just sit at the table and talk to Jack would be nice. 

"That sounds like an awesome plan." Aaron looked at Reid who still has his back to him and wondered what kind of other tricks Reid had that he and Maggie Lynn could teach them. 

"Pancake batter is all mixed."

"Let me see," Reid said as he walked away from the stove, turning the frying pan handle to where it couldn't be knocked. He looked at the batter in the bowl before nodding his head. Jack picked up a bowl of nuts and chocolate chips and dumped those in before stirring those in. Aaron knew that he should help but Maggie was dishing out the fruit, Reid had the bacon in hand, and Jack didn't need any help at all, so Aaron just watched. 

When the nuts and chips were mixed in, Aaron watched Jack pick up what looked like a peach glaze. He didn't dump that in, but he used the spoon in it to scoop up some of the glaze and dump it into the pancake batter. When he had about a half of a cup, he started to stir again. 

"Ready to help me make pancakes?" Reid asked. 

"Yes, Sir." Jack salted Reid with the handle of the spoon he had been using to stir. A string of batter almost came off, but Jack caught it with his other hand and licked it clean. Reid took the last of the bacon out of the skillet and dumped it onto a pan that he then stuck into the oven. Aaron saw that there wasn't a lot of bacon on the plate. Enough for a few pieces each. Reid walked to Jack and took the bowl to allow Jack to slide off of the counter and onto the floor before he took it back. Jack walked to the table and set the bowl down. Maggie Lynn had cleaned up her mess from the fruit cutting and had the bowls settled at each spot at the table. There was a plate already there for pancakes and glasses for drinks. Aaron watched Reid as he scooped the batter into a weird container. Jack was bouncing on his feet. 

"I used some of the money to get a few things like the containers of the yogurt. Those can be used for the overnight oatmeal as well. I also got the pancake batter thing. I think you'll like it," Maggie Lynn said as she came to rest beside Aaron. "We gave you the easy job."

"What's that?"

"Drinks. Orange juice and milk are in the fridge. I got new this morning, of each as Jack and I drank the other yesterday."

"Are you sure you are fifteen?" Aaron asked. 

"Oh, I am and believe me I still do stupid things that other teenagers do, but I grew up too fast with Mom dying. I remember it. Like Papa, I remember a lot from about age two up. Papa raised me to take care of myself. I don't think he knew any other way to raise me except as he did." 

"He's been a good father."

"So are you," Maggie Lynn said. She wrapped her arm around Aaron's side and pulled him into a hug. She was smaller, but she was strong. That was good. She was too beautiful to not know how to defend herself. "So..."

"Yes?"

"Every weekend that I babysit Jack."

"Ah, yes. Your payment. Somehow I don't think it's monetary is it?"

"No. I want you to take me to a gun range for an hour." 

Aaron sputtered and looked at Maggie Lynn. He frowned and looked at Reid.

"Papa's scores are enough to get him to pass, but he's not that great. You were SWAT, and you have the best scores for non-SWAT members. Papa has taken me to the range a few times, but he's a nervous shooter on a good day, much less when I'm around."

Aaron nodded his head in agreement because there was little else that he could do. He couldn't imagine Maggie Lynn with a gun in hand, but as Spencer was FBI and had been for a few years, Aaron couldn't see him introducing guns to the house and not having her know how to handle them. Aaron had taught Jack enough about them for his age. 

Maggie Lynn grinned at him and clapped her hand. "Chop, chop, Hotch. Drinks aren't going to pour themselves."

Aaron turned to focus on the drinks, and he watched Reid as the young man took a pancake off of the skillet and held the pan up for Jack to squeeze the handle on the device the batter had been poured in. A dollop of the stuff came out, and Aaron looked at it a little shocked. A perfect amount came out. Aaron wondered where the thing had been bought. He wanted one. 

* * *

Aaron was pretty sure that Maggie Lynn had adopted Aaron and Jack as projects. Aaron knew that he should have felt a little anger at being managed by a fifteen-year-old genius but she did it with a smile on her face and the results were that Aaron got to spend a lot more time with Jack. There was also more time with Reid outside of work as he picked up his kid from Aaron's at least once a week. Maggie Lynn and Jessica had worked out a deal that had Maggie Lynn watching Jack usually at least two weekends of the month and a night or two during the week. 

Maggie Lynn swore that she had the time and mostly she worked on homework while Jack did or while Jack played in the backyard. 

However, Aaron was not expecting to find Maggie Lynn on his doorstep at eleven at night with a backpack over her shoulder and tears in her eyes. Aaron had just got settled into bed after a day at the office after a four-day case. The team had the next day off, and Aaron had planned on getting some housework done while Jack was in school. Not that there was much between Jessica and Maggie Lynn. 

"Maggie Lynn?" Aaron asked, not sure what to say. She burst into tears and threw herself at Aaron. She was just small enough that Aaron was able to drag her into the house and shut the door. Aaron picked her up when they were inside and after Aaron had locked the door and set the alarm. 

"Don't make me leave," Maggie Lynn begged as Aaron set her down in the corner of the couch. He grabbed her favorite blanket and laid it over her body. 

"I won't make you leave, but you have to talk to me, or I am calling your father."

"NO!" Maggie Lynn shot forward on the couch, and she hissed as soon as she did. Her face was pale, even more than she normally was. She had Reid's complexion as well as the fact that she didn't go outside that much in the sun to make her pale, but this was different. "Please."

"I'm calling Jessica at least," Aaron said. Maggie Lynn didn't protest as Aaron stood up and walked to the house phone. The conversation was short with Jessica and Aaron feared the worst as Maggie Lynn sat on the couch and cried. Aaron was afraid to touch her to cause her more pain, but as she kept peeking up at him, Aaron sat down on the couch beside her and let her tuck herself into his body. Aaron was gentle as he wrapped his arm around her shoulder. 

Jessica let herself into the house twenty minutes later, dressed in the clothes she had been wearing earlier when she had left the house. 

"Wanna come up to the bathroom with me Maggie Lynn?" Jessica sacked, but Maggie Lynn shook her head and tucked herself further into Aaron. 

"Do you want both of us to?" Aaron asked. 

Maggie Lynn nodded at that. Aaron could understand it a little. Maggie Lynn hadn't had a mother in her life for a long time. Maggie Lynn stood up, and Aaron watched her face as she moved. She was hurt, that much Aaron knew. He frowned as Jessica led Maggie Lynn up the steps. Maggie Lynn looked back at him to make sure that he was following. Once they were up in Aaron's bathroom, Aaron grabbed his phone and texted Will. Aaron knew that he was working, so he asked Will and his partner to be ready to come to his house and to pick up Reid on the way. Aaron told him that he would explain it all in due course. 

"What happened?" Jessica asked. 

Maggie Lynn had wrapped the blanket tight around her body like it was a shield. 

"I have a few friends at school but not a lot because no one really gets me, you know. Papa made sure that I understood that it wasn't me but them. Them and their narrow views that they might grow out of once they were out in the real world as it were." In the light of the bathroom, Aaron could see bruises starting to form on her face, and he thought the worst. 

"Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. They fear what they don't understand and people like you and your father, can generate a lot of not understanding," Aaron said. 

"Papa always raised me to be who I was. When I turned thirteen, I kissed a girl and a boy. I thought I liked them both, but then I found out that I didn't. Papa likes boys and girls. I just like girls." 

Aaron closed his eyes because he knew what some men thought of women who only liked other women. He had seen it too much in his line of work. Some men assumed that lesbians only needed a good fuck to cure them of their dislike of cock. 

"Papa made sure I was in a girl's dorm like he was but I don't think he understands that sometimes girls are more hateful to each other than boys are." Maggie Lynn let the blanket drop down off of her body, and Aaron took in her clothes for the first time. Her shirt was ripped, but it was more like she had run and someone grabbed it than someone had tried to rip it off of her. "Three girls who I thought were my friends didn't like it when they found out that I like girls. They felt that I shouldn't be housed with them since I found them attractive." 

"Sweetie, we need to call your dad." Jessica looked very upset. 

"I know. He's going to be mad, and upset, and worried and I just..." Maggie Lynn started to cry again, and she rushed to Aaron. The ripped shirt fluttered, and Aaron saw the bruises on her body that were stark on her skin. 

"We need to get you to a hospital. You could have internal bleeding. Why don't we have Reid meet us there?" Aaron asked. He tried to be gentle, but Maggie Lynn was having none of that. She gripped Aaron tight. "And Detective LaMontagne and his partner?"

"Aaron, if it was on campus..."Jessica trailed off. 

"It wasn't," Maggie Lynn said through her tears. "It happened just off campus, and I know it was caught on camera. I also recorded it. Well, enough of it. I had my digital recorder in my hand when they approached. I turned it on and slipped it into my shirt. It fell when they were hitting me, but it didn't break. After they left me, I came right here as this is closer to campus than Papa's place."

Aaron shuffled Maggie Lynn into the car while Jessica stayed with Jack. Aaron knew that she wanted to go, but after getting Maggie Lynn's clothes off and bagged up for evidence, Maggie Lynn didn't want anyone but Aaron. Aaron called Will before they drove off and Will was going to pick up Reid, and they were going to meet at the hospital that Maggie Lynn wanted to go to. 

All of them met at the hospital at the same time. The only thing that had delayed Aaron and Maggie Lynn from getting there was Aaron had changed into a suit. He wasn't sure why but he had and grabbed his gun and credentials. 

"How did you get here so fast?" Aaron asked as Reid walked right to Maggie Lynn who was now dressed in some of Jessica's sleep clothes. Aaron handed Will the bags with Maggie Lynn's other clothes. 

"Will called me and said that you had asked him to possibly pick me up and to bring his partner, so we all met at my place and waited," Reid said. He was focused on Maggie Lynn's face. Touching her here and there. 

"And I was already on alert about a young girl with little description having tasered three girls who were at the station giving a statement. I recognized Maggie Lynn's description from what little my Captain told me. The thing is that none of them could give a reason why a girl who was younger than them would attack them. They are lying, and my Captain knows it. I'll give him a heads up that I think I know what happened and get Maggie Lynn's full statement."

"They don't like that I like girls. It's a hate crime," Maggie Lynn said. 

"Let's get you checked out, Mags, and then I can have a freak out where you can't see or hear me."

"I know you say bad words, Papa. You taught me all of them you know."

The joke fell flat, but Maggie Lynn didn't seem to care. She slipped from her father's grip and started in the ER. Aaron knew that Reid would have a lot of paperwork to fill out, but while that was going on, Aaron could give his statement as an outcry witness. Jessica would have to give hers as well, and Aaron would let Will know that someone could head at any time because Jessica was going to be up waiting for that news. 

Aaron talked to Will for an hour before Will went to talk to Maggie Lynn after her exam was done. She was waiting for a CT and a full body X-Ray just to check for fractures and other things that were not visible to the eye. Will had a photo array with him of girls that fit Maggie Lynn's description, and she picked out the three that had attacked her. 

"Captain did a photo array with the other girls all three picked out Maggie Lynn. Two of them have called her a freak, after claiming not to know her. This isn't going to go well, and the college is going to want to bury this."

"She's the daughter of a decorated FBI agent from one of their top Units, and she's an underage lesbian genius. There is no way that this is going to be buried. They are all over the age of twenty. Maggie Lynn is fifteen and not emancipated anyway. There is no way that the college is going to get Maggie Lynn or Reid to let them handle it."

"Speaking of..." Will trailed off, and Aaron turned to look at who Will was talking about and Aaron didn't know the person but behind her were two campus security agents. "Maybe it's time of the Reid family to get a lawyer?" 

"I think it might be." Aaron turned to step up to the woman who was walking their way. "How can I help you?"

"You can't help me. I'm looking for a young woman who needs to answer for her assault of three of my students."

"My name is Aaron Hotchner, and I am the legal counsel for the Reid family, so you are going to talk to me now or not to anyone."

The woman looked him up and down before she spoke. "We are looking to detain Magdalena Reid for assault of three adults."

"Yet, they are at the police station giving their statement, and all of them have stated that it happened off campus, I have officers going and getting the security camera for the area where it happened, Dean," Will said as he stepped up. His badge on display on his chest. 

"You won't be speaking to Miss Reid without me there, either one of you," Aaron said. He hoped that Will wouldn't take it as him being anything other than wanting to keep up a front in front of the Dean. 

The woman narrowed her eyes at Aaron but nodded her head. 

It was two hours before the doctors let anyone but Reid in with Maggie Lynn, and Aaron and Will went first. The door was shut, and the blinds were drawn so that the Dean couldn't see. Aaron spoke to Spencer to let him know what was going on.

"So for now, I'll be your lawyer."

"I can get someone else."

"Let me. I keep my education up to date and can be your lawyer through all of this. Those girls only have a few wounds, according to what Will said and Maggie Lynn looks like an assault victim. There is only a single way that this can be seen. If it goes to court, their lawyer is going to make it that she hit on them or made a pass, but the visuals don't lie."

"The doctor's documented it all. The nurses are very upset. I can understand, I mean, she looks like an angel." Reid had a smile on his face as Maggie Lynn talked to Will and Will's partner. It was horrible to hear the words repeated back from her mouth of what her attackers’ said. 

Aaron watched as Reid's hands clenched and unclenched as Maggie Lynn spoke, the story getting worse and worse. Aaron listened as Maggie Lynn talked about being yanked up by her hair and thrown to where her taser was in her bag. The taser was made by a group of kids at Caltech for protection as it has five different sets of prongs and five charges to it. She handed it over to Will to use as evidence, and it was very evident that only three of the sets had been fired. 

Reid got stiffer and stiffer as Maggie Lynn talked. Aaron knew that he was going to snap at some point, so he laid a hand on Reid's shoulder that helped calm him down. A nurse was with Maggie Lynn the whole time. Aaron wasn't sure if it was because they were afraid she would hurt herself, or it was the fact that they were all males, even though she had been attacked by females. 

"You said you were just walking," Will's partner asked after Maggie Lynn had gone silent after finishing her narrative. 

"I had eaten dinner at this place that lets me charge everything and then Papa pays them at the end of the month. They do really good food, and I can eat pretty healthy there when I don't have something made up that I cook at Papa's and bring back with me to stick in my fridge." 

Will and his partner looked really upset. 

"How did they know that you like females?"

"It came up in a psychology class. I wasn't the only one to come out during it, and I didn't think much of it, but word must have spread."

"Maggie Lynn, I have a question for you, and I understand if you want to not have your father around to talk about it," Will said. 

"I don't keep things from Papa."

"My Captain texted me that one of the girls has accused you of lying about your sexuality because you are, her words mind you, fucking her boyfriend."

"Oh, that's who that is!" Maggie Lynn sat up, and for a few seconds, it looked like she regretted it. "Nathan Good. He's a football player, and we are working on a paper for our Abnormal Psych class together. He's thinking of dumping her because she accuses him of sleeping with everyone that he studies with and stating that because he doesn't show her the attention that she thinks she deserves and instead studies that he doesn't love. He does love her, but she keeps on hurting him. I've talked him through a lot of things and showed him how horrible she really is to him, but no, I'm not fucking him. He's never even tried to kiss me. He has a little sister my age, and I think that he looks at me like that." 

Aaron looked at Will, who looked fifteen shades of pissed off. 

"That's all our questions for now. I know how to get a hold of you if I need you, Maggie Lynn. You just rest up and don't let this bother you." Will reached out and brushed a single finger down the side of Maggie Lynn's face. She kind of leaned into the touch. 

"I'll be fine, Detective LaMontagne. I'm sure that Papa will make sure I talk to my therapist a great deal about this. I won't be able to get away with anything." 

Reid walked over to Maggie Lynn's side and sat down on the bed. He gently cupped the side of her face and drew her to his side. She leaned into him willingly as the Dean entered the room. She looked at Aaron and huffed before looking at Reid, and the look that she gave him was pure hatred. Aaron wondered what had happened there to cause that because Reid wasn't someone that most people hated.

"Doctor Reid, I have to protest the lawyer that you have present."

"Why?" Spencer asked. 

"We are just here to find out the truth, lawyers aren't needed."

"And yet the girls who attacked my daughter are saying that she attacked them. And it seems that you were going to come in here and see what you could do to get my daughter out of the school, again."

Aaron stiffened at the word “again”. Aaron looked at Spencer to see that he was keeping calmer than Aaron probably would have. 

"I state again that she is too young and too sheltered to live a life on a college campus."

"Then it's a good thing you are not the final say and just the Dean over student life. If charges, criminal or college are pressed against her, I will fight it to the extent that I can if she is found guilty by a monkey circus that college call students advocates or whatever name your school has for them. I'll make it my personal vendetta to make sure that no student who cares about their career post-college will go to yours. Think about that before you ask your first questions."

That seemed to fluster the Dean to no end. She glared at Spencer before looking at Maggie Lynn, and for the first time, she seemed to take it all in. There was something in her eyes that Aaron almost thought was pity. 

In the end, the Dean only asked about what happened and didn't press too much. There wasn't a lot that the college could do other than kick students out on an honor code violation. Still, that would look bad for the college if the whole truth came out. Given how pissed Reid was, there was no way that he wasn't going to push for the entire truth to come out.

The Dean left with the two she had brought and then it was just Aaron, Reid, and Maggie Lynn in the room as the nurse had gone. 

"Why does she hate Maggie Lynn so much?" Aaron asked as he stepped up to the other side of the bed. He didn't reach out and touch Maggie Lynn, but he wanted to. He wanted to reassure himself that she was okay and there, but he was afraid of hurting her. 

"It's not her that she hates, it's me. I went to school with her youngest, who was the actual age for going to college and I beat her at every single award and in every single class that we had together. Sabrina holds no ill will against me, and I sent cards at Christmas to her and her husband; they recently had a child but her mother..." Reid waved at the door. "You can see. It's not just me. She had found ways of getting most high IQ kids from not applying or going. That's going to be coming out as soon as I have the ear of the Dean of the whole school instead of just the department that Maggie Lynn is involved in and they hired a private investigator. It's not good when the boons to college are pushed out. It would publicly shame the school to no end."

"Papa, I want to sleep." Maggie Lynn sounded much younger than her fifteen years at that moment, and Aaron saw the part of her that allowed herself to want things that she shouldn't because of age, and she wasn't ashamed of it. Aaron never would have let his mother hear him talk like that after he was four years old. The childish begging for things that made one feel better. Neither Maggie Lynn nor Reid looked ashamed of what she had said. Aaron thought that he had seen every single aspect of the relationship between father and daughter, but this showed him that he hadn't. Aaron knew that he was a good father and if he had even half the relationship with Jack that these two had when Jack was fifteen, Aaron would consider himself a wonderful father. He would have to get Spencer to reveal his secrets to him one night. 

"Then sleep, Mags. You don't have a concussion. Hotch and I will leave." Reid started to act like he was going to stand up, but Maggie Lynn gripped his arm hard, stopping him. Reid looked at Aaron who gave him a wan smile. "I'll stay."

"Hotch too, please." Maggie still sounded like a young child with that statement. She scooted in the bed closer to Aaron and wrapped the blanket around herself tighter as Reid laid down to hold her close. She looked so small even compared to her slight frame. Aaron found a chair and dragged it closer to the bed and settled down into it. The nurse came in a few minutes later with blankets for the both of them. She laid Reid's over his body and smiled at Aaron before handing his over to him. Aaron nodded his thanks and then they were left alone to get a little sleep. 

* * *

Aaron woke up with his hand stuck in a hard grip. He was leaning on something soft and the last time that he had slept like that was when Elle had been in the hospital. Aaron knew from the smell he was in a hospital, but he wasn't sure why. The grip on his hand was still very strong, so instead of pulling out of it, Aaron just sat up. His back protested the movement, and his whole body ached. Maggie Lynn and Reid had switched positions in the night, the IV had moved as well to where it was on the other side. Reid was asleep on his back with Maggie Lynn draped on along his side. She was sleeping on her side, and her arm stretched over Reid's belly. That hand was what was gripping Aaron's hand tightly. Reid was still asleep, but Maggie Lynn was awake and staring at him. 

"Good morning," Aaron whispered. 

"Morning." 

"How do you feel?"

"Like someone used me as a punching bag. Your phone vibrated once a little bit ago. I peeked, and it was Jessica. I unlocked your phone and texted her how I was doing, and she and Jack are going to come over in about an hour. It's just after seven right now. I've already talked to my nurse, and everything looks good, including organ function so as soon as the doctor makes his rounds, I'll be released. I'll need a good breakfast as I have some muscle relaxers and pain killers being prescribed as well as a low grade antibiotic for the cuts and scrapes on my back from being dragged around."

"You've had a productive morning while your father and I slept."

"I woke up at five and couldn't go back to sleep. It's my normal wake up time. There is this little diner that's close to Papa's apartment that does a breakfast bar of sorts."

"It's not like anyone could sleep with you two yammering away," Reid said. His eyes opened, but his body didn't move at all. Maggie Lynn sat up on the bed to allow Reid to move. He moved so carefully off of the bed it was like he was scared of hurting her. Aaron would have been as well. Aaron leaned back so that Reid could slip off of the bed without hitting Aaron. Reid must not have moved much in the night because as soon as his legs were holding up his whole weight, they caved and Reid fell right into Aaron lap. Aaron acted out of instinct and wrapped his arms around Reid and held him tight so that he didn't slip to the floor. 

"Sorry."

"It's fine. Probably shouldn't have done your whole weight right off the bat." Aaron helped Reid slowly get to his feet. 

"Good morning, Miss Maggie Lynn," the doctor said as he entered the room. He was looking down at her chart, and that allowed Aaron time to stand up and push the chair back to where it was to allow the doctor access to her from that side of the bed. The doctor looked up after two minutes of looking at the chart. "As the notes from the nurse, everything looks good. Your latest blood work shows nothing wrong, and that means that you do get to go home. Now I'm going to give you a list of things that you can't do and things to watch for. I know that you have a rudimentary knowledge as you've taken a few classes in a medical doctor tract but that doesn't mean that you can do what you want."

"I think that with three mother hens and a little chick to watch over me, I won't be allowed to lift a finger until the discharge papers say I can," Maggie Lynn said with s smile. 

"Doctor Reid, Agent Hotchner, a gentleman dropped off a bag for each of you from your office last night. I think his name was..." The doctor trailed off as he looked down at the clipboard. "Agent Morgan. We have a facility you two can change and clean up a little in. Amanda here will take you there."

"Will must have called Morgan to get a go-bag for each of us," Aaron said. 

"Detective LaMontagne does seem like that kind of man," Reid said. 

There was indeed an area they could get changed in, and it was the doctor's lounge so there was a strip of shower heads along the wall and benches outside so they could set their stuff. Aaron was glad that his Dopp kit was stocked in the bag he kept in his office. Reid's bag looked like it was mostly packed, just missing his contact case. 

Aaron was done showering first, and he found a nurse and got a contact case from her and a small bottle of solution they kept for patients who were in accidents that needed their contacts out. Reid was looking at himself in the mirror by a small sink when Aaron walked in. 

"I got you a case and solution. Your eyes look like shit," Aaron said. 

Reid was still just in a towel wrapped around his waist, and Aaron saw him mostly naked for the first time. Reid's clothes hid a great deal it seemed. Reid was thin, Aaron knew that, but he didn't realize that thinness came from slight muscle that corded up and down his body. 

"I'm just glad that this bag has a pair of glasses. It's why I keep it at the office. I forgot that I ran out of solution and my contact case broke on the last case I used it on." Reid turned around and held his hand out for the items Aaron had got for him. One hand was firmly on his towel holding it in place. Aaron handed them over and walked to his bag to start to pack it up. Reid used some of the solution in his eyes, wetting it all before he began to remove the contacts. Aaron watched him out of the corner of his eye. Aaron really didn't need the memories of what Reid looked like in just a towel, it would feed his fantasies that had been steadily building for weeks. Still, Aaron couldn't look away. He watched as Reid leaned over to get his eye as close to the mirror as possible with the second one, his fingers so careful as he removed the contact from the very upset eye that it was on. Spencer flushed his eyes, both of them with the contact solution that was left in the small bottle after sealing up his contacts. It was interesting to see him so focused on something.

Aaron wondered how it felt to be the object of Reid's focus. Aaron wondered about Joselyn and had not asked what had been wrong with her. Aaron could understand wanting privacy. Too many knew of what happened with Aaron and Haley between the divorce and then later with Foyet killing Haley. 

Reid blinked his eyes, trying to help clear them before he picked up his glasses and looked at his hair in the mirror. He played with it until it looked slightly mussed but in a good way.

"So breakfast out, which is good because I don't have anything laid out for breakfast to feed everyone."

"I wouldn't presume to have you feed us. You are going to have to worry about Maggie Lynn for a few days to make sure that she doesn't do anything stupid. She's a Reid, and that means too stubborn for their own good."

"I think that's the kettle calling the pot black, Hotch." Reid focused his eyes on Aaron in the mirror before he turned around to walk to his go-bag and get changed. Aaron looked to the side as Reid dropped the towel but not before Aaron got a good look at Spencer's ass before looking entirely away. Reid took little time to get dressed and what he was dressed in kind of shocked Aaron. Aaron had yet to see him in jeans. Yet there he was in a pair of soft and faded ones that were a little tighter than the regular pants that he wore. He also wore a short sleeved t-shirt. It was a very different look for him, and while Aaron liked it, he didn't as well. 

Reid garnered a lot of attention, but he never noticed it, and in the outfit he was in at the current, he was going to get a lot more. Aaron had thought maybe before he had known about Joselyn and Maggie Lynn that Reid was somewhere on the asexual spectrum. He still could be, but Aaron at least noticed him looking at people sometimes but he was never sure if it was interest in a sexual way or a quirk that they had behaviourally that he noticed. It was impossible to tell with Reid. 

Aaron opened up the door for Reid when they exited the doctor's lounge. Reid started out and stopped in his tracks, making Aaron run into him. Aaron frowned until he heard someone speak. 

"Spencer!" Jack yelled and then Aaron was being bumped backward as Reid caught a flying Jack. 

"Hello, Jack. Miss Brooks," Reid said. 

Aaron watched Reid bend down and then Jack's head was popping up over Reid's shoulder. 

"DAD!" Jack nearly screamed so loud that it took Aaron's hearing. Reid laughed at the exuberance of Jack but said nothing else. 

"Jack, it's a hospital," Aaron chided. 

"Sorry. Can I see Mags?" Jack asked. 

"Yes, let's go see her. I bet that you being there will make her feel better," Reid said before he started walking again. Aaron followed behind him, Jessica drawing even with him. She had a bag slung over her shoulder. Aaron recognized it as the one that Maggie Lynn kept at Aaron's for when she stayed over. 

"Sorry it took so long. We took a cab so that we wouldn't have three vehicles going everywhere. I thought that Spencer, Jack, and I could fit in your backseat and Maggie Lynn could have the front."

"That sounds like a plan," Aaron said. He knew that the back would be a tight fit, but Jack wouldn't care, and Reid was used to be crowded as sometimes SUV space was tight. 

* * *

Four weeks later saw Maggie Lynn totally healed from the assault. The girls who had been the perpetrators of it were in jail awaiting trial as their parents had the means to get them out of the country. The judge who had presided over the bail hearing had not been well pleased by the fact that they had assaulted a fifteen-year-old girl for her sexuality. The cameras that had caught the assault had audio as well as video because it was a high crime area at night. 

Maggie Lynn was still at GWU, but the Dean was not. It had not been taken well when Spencer had gone to the school to unenroll her. There were a lot of departments that had protested that, and when it was revealed why, the head Dean of the school had been none too pleased. Maggie Lynn just wanted to learn, and she liked the school other than that, so she was happy she was not leaving. 

Aaron sipped at his cup of tea as he watched Jack and Maggie Lynn playing on the play area at the mall. They were the only ones on it, and so Aaron hadn't fought the teenager playing on it even though someone for the mall could get upset because it was against the posted rules. Spencer was in the shop that was close, and he had said it would take a few minutes for him to find what he was looking for and that the three of them didn't need to go into the store. Jack had just been getting his second wind after a morning of shopping, so Aaron found that letting him burn off energy was a good way to go about things. Maggie Lynn had gone to get them all drinks and Spencer's was sitting beside Aaron on the bench that wrapped around the play area. 

Jack screeched as Maggie Lynn jumped from behind a very much out-of-scale toadstool and caught him. Aaron looked around, and the few adults who were around just smiled at Jack, so Aaron didn't feel that he needed to quiet him. Aaron felt more than heard Spencer walk up behind him. The younger man leaned over, his breath ghosting over Aaron's skin as he grabbed his drink. Aaron tried not to let it affect him because if he got hard in the jeans that he was in, he would never be able to hide it. 

"That was my last store, and it's past time for lunch so how about we let them play for another ten minutes and then we can go and find lunch at that new Mexican place that Jack has been wanting to go to?" Spencer asked. He was still leaning over Aaron, but his head was right beside Aaron's instead of behind it. Still, it was too intimate to be anything but arousing to Aaron. Spencer had been changing in his regards to Aaron as they spent more time together. Jack had made it his mission to help Maggie Lynn get better, and that meant being really good when she watched him, and for the first few days after the assault, he had nearly waited on her hand and foot. The adults found it cute and adorable, and that had only made the both of blush, but Maggie Lynn didn't tell him to stop, and Jack didn't stop on his own. 

"That sounds like a plan." Aaron turned his head enough to see Spencer's profile. Spencer was smiling as he watched the two play some game that they had made up. It was played a lot of the time that they were together and Maggie Lynn wasn't responsible for watching Jack. "I'm still kind of shocked to see her play as much as she does for a fifteen-year-old girl."

"I didn't..." Reid frowned and stood up. Aaron turned around to see him walking toward where the opening was to get to the benches inside of the play area. Spencer sat down next to him and took a large drink of his coffee before he turned to kind of face Aaron in the seat. His leg was up on the bench, pressed against Aaron's leg. "I didn't have a childhood. My father wanted me to be a normal boy but his definition of a normal boy who played baseball. I sucked at baseball, and when Father figured that out, well he gave up on me. Mom was all about me being the smartest genius, and I knew that I could please her, so I did that. I turned to pure academics. Joselyn was the one who taught me how to play and how to have fun. Even if it was smart fun. I adapted what Joselyn taught me to teach Maggie Lynn how to be a kid. Was the fun we had nerdy or geeky? Yes, it was, but it was fun to us, and that was all that mattered." 

"You do really well with her, Spencer." 

"It's trial and error. We are both stubborn, so there were a lot of fights between us. Especially when she was hitting puberty. Gods, we had the cops called on us once because all she did was scream at me for ten minutes when she was eleven. The cops arrived and heard her, busted down the door and stared at the girl in the living room who was screaming while I was sitting there reading a book. She was so damned embarrassed that she never did it again. It also didn't help that she was in her underwear. We were fighting over clothes and what I would and would not allow her to wear to a dance at school. The two officers who came in were very hot, and that was mortifying for her because she hadn't quite figured out that she likes to look at a male figure, but it does nothing more than that to her."

"I could just see her looking at the officers and then running."

"Oh, she did. She got into the clothes that I had picked and walked out to apologize to the officers. She then wrote a very long apology to the neighbors and made them all cookies. We have our ups and our downs, but we are pretty good together."

Jack slumped down on the bench beside Aaron, and Maggie Lynn flopped on the other side of Jack. Both of them were lying flat on their backs and breathing hard like they had run a marathon. Jack's hair was plastered to his head where he was sweating. 

"I'm hungry," Maggie Lynn and Jack said at the same time. 

Spencer started to laugh. 

"Why don't we go an see about getting out pictures done in that booth like you both wanted when we got here?" Aaron asked. 

"We all have to go in and make a funny face!" Jack said. 

Aaron stood up and waved both of them forward. Maggie Lynn was up first, and she waited for Spencer to get up before she started forward. 

"You first, Papa," Maggie Lynn said when they got to the booth that was on the way out of the mall. 

Spencer put the money into the slot and went inside, pulling the curtain shut. Maggie Lynn was next and then Jack and finally Aaron. The good thing was that it was one that you had to press the button for it to take the picture. Aaron was looking forward to seeing the results. When Aaron got out, the machine was spitting the images out, and Aaron saw that Spencer had paid for four sets to be printed. Jack handed one set to each of them. 

Aaron couldn't help but laugh at the face that Spencer was making. He had two fingers in each side of his mouth pulling his face into a grin. Maggie Lynn had her face kind of scrunched up with her upper teeth showing and her tongue stuck out. Jack looked like he was glaring at the camera in a mock of Aaron's own Hotchner Glare. Aaron had his hands on his fists looking at the camera with a pleading look on his face. Aaron smiled. 

"Can me and Mags do some that are just us?" Jack asked. 

"Sure, buddy," Aaron said, and he pulled out enough money for four sets again. The two kids piled into the camera booth and for the few minutes that they were in there, there was a lot of giggling and a few thumps. 

"I never had my picture taken in one of these booths," Spencer said as he carefully slipped his strips of pictures into a pocket on his vest. Aaron had on a suit from the court visit he had been at in the morning; a case that he needed to testify at that was local. He had been the one to give the profile through consult that had caught the UnSub. The team had been given the day to either work in the office or take off, and Spencer had chosen to take the day off. Aaron had met the three of them at the mall where all of them had been shopping. Maggie Lynn hadn't had classes that day as her teacher was gone for a conference and Jack was playing hooky. Aaron didn't allow it a lot, but Jack was usually a little further than his other classmates so missing a day here and there wasn't a big deal. 

"Neither have I." Aaron smiled as Maggie Lynn and Jack stumbled out of the photo booth. Maggie Lynn had a few dollars in her hand, and she fed them into the machine. Aaron frowned but watched as Jack walked toward him and Maggie Lynn walked to Spencer. 

"Your turn!" Maggie Lynn said as she started to push at her father at the same time that Jack began to push at Aaron. Spencer laughed and allowed Maggie Lynn to all but shove him into the booth. Aaron was next, and when he raised his foot to step into the booth, he caught it on the edge and fell right into Spencer's lap. Aaron felt the flash of the camera on his face and looked at it in shock to see Maggie Lynn's hand pushing the button to take the picture. Spencer laughed and was leaning forward to smack her hand away when she pressed the button again. Spencer got a good smack in on the hand and then she was pulling it away. Aaron was watching Spencer face with the majority of his gaze, looking out the side at the button. Spencer was grinning, and he looked beautiful. Aaron reached up to turn Spencer to face him fully. There was mirth in Spencer's eyes and surprise when Aaron started to lean in, his intention hopefully entirely obvious. 

Spencer's fingers brushed at Aaron's jaw, just touching as their lips met. Aaron watched as Spencer's eyes closed and then Spencer was leaning into the kiss a little harder. Aaron closed his eyes as well and cupped the other side of Spencer's face to hold him there while he kissed him. Aaron felt Spencer's fingers curl on his jaw before hands were wrapping around the back of his head to keep him in place. Aaron knew that they should go slow, but he had to know what Spencer tasted like. Aaron licked at the seam of Spencer's lips and felt them part. Aaron dipped his tongue inside, tasting the coffee that Spencer had drunk but it tasted like the best coffee in the world at that moment. 

The machine started to whir, and Aaron pulled out of the kiss sharply. Spencer's eyes shot open in surprise and began to shutter themselves like he was steeling himself to be yelled at. Aaron looked to see that there was no flashing screen telling him to hit the button to take the pictures and the whirring was the machine printing the images. Aaron groaned, and before he could tell Spencer that the kids had taken pictures of them kissing, Maggie Lynn was making a little squealing noise. The curtain was jerked open, and she was grinning at them. 

"You two are adorable!" Maggie Lynn thrust the pictures into Aaron's face, too close to actually be seen by Aaron, so he reached out and pushed them back some. The first and second were of Aaron falling on Spencer, and then him looking the camera in shock. The next two were them kissing. The first right when their lips had touched, and the look of pleased shock on Spencer's was telling more than anything else that he was more than wanting of that kiss. The last image was when Aaron had tasted Spencer for the first time. That one looked like it did not belong anywhere but in the bedroom. 

"Teaching ninja skills has never proven to be a good idea," Spencer said his voice close. Aaron looked to the side to see that he was leaning in to look at the pictures. 

"You've had more than on time where it's proven to have worked not in your favor?" Aaron asked.

"This is the thirty-fourth time," Maggie Lynn said with a grin. 

"You act like you are proud of that," Aaron said. He waved for Maggie Lynn to back up and he got out. Aaron turned and held his hand to help Spencer out of the box. Spencer looked at his hand for a second before he placed his in it and allowed himself to be pulled out. Aaron kept on pulling until Spencer was close again. He brushed a kiss on the genius's cheek. Spencer started to blush while Jack began to clap. Aaron laughed and pressed his cheek to Spencer's. 

"Maggie Lynn is very proud of the moments that I realize what it was like to raise me," Spencer said. 

"I just bet," Aaron said in Spencer's ear. He turned his head a little more. "Let me take you on a date tonight, Spencer." 

"Yes, God, yes," Spencer said. 

"I'll watch Jack," Maggie Lynn supplied helpfully. 

"Yeah and I'll be good, I promise," Jack said. 

Aaron looked at the two who couldn't keep their smirks off of their faces. He wondered just how many times the two of them had tried to throw them together and they hadn't noticed it. 

"I think that I know the perfect place for tonight," Spencer said as he linked his arm through Aaron's and settled into his side. Maggie Lynn slipped one of the each of the pictures in with the other in their pockets where they had stored the first before adding her's and Jack's to the ones in her purse. When Aaron and Spencer started forward the two of them settled in at their sides, Maggie Lynn at Aaron's and Jack at Spencer's. Aaron wondered how they looked. He thought that maybe they looked like a perfectly happy family, something he hoped to grow with time.

* * *

Aaron rolled over and found that Spencer's side of the bed was empty. Aaron kept on going and turned on the light. It was just after midnight. They had decided to stay at Spencer's after a family date as Maggie Lynn called them. Aaron's eyes caught on the frame that was on the bedside. He reached out and picked it up. His eyes were drawn to the same picture of Joselyn that was in the frame in the living room. She was very pregnant, and it was just a shot of her from the side with her large belly taking up the focus of the image. Spencer's picture in the frame was obviously from around that same time. Then there was an image of a smiling Joselyn. She looked like she was ecstatically happy. The only picture of Maggie Lynn that was in it was her as a toddler. It was obviously her and Aaron thought she was cute, but he could see why this image was delegated to Spencer's bedroom and not the living room. 

"That was two weeks after we found out that she was, in fact, pregnant," Spencer said as he got back into bed, snuggling into Aaron's back and wrapping an arm around Aaron's chest. "We were so happy. Joselyn couldn't not smile the whole time that she was pregnant, even though she had morning sickness the whole of it and she was on bed rest of the last three months. Even during labor, she was smiling."

"I'm so glad that she found you, Spencer and glad you found her. I don't think I could see you without Maggie Lynn in your life."

"I don't think about it often." Spencer buried his face in the back of Aaron's neck. There were no sounds in the apartment. Maggie Lynn was in her room while Jack was asleep on the pullout couch that Spencer had. Six months of dating and Aaron still hated it when they parted. He knew that he was close to asking Spencer to move with Maggie Lynn into his house, which was closer to GWU than the apartment, and Aaron was more than willing to use it as a reason. Aaron already had the second guest room cleaned out to make it into a place for Maggie Lynn. 

Aaron pushed with his arm, rolling over in Spencer's hold. He laid on his back while Spencer rested his chin on Aaron's chest. Aaron buried his fingers in Spencer's hair, the locks going everywhere from where Aaron had run his hands through it while they had made out before bed. Neither had enough energy for more than that the night before. Family date night had worn them both out. 

"Hey," Aaron said as he brushed his thumb across Spencer's bottom lip. 

"Yeah?" Spencer asked with a yawn. 

"I love you," Aaron said, saying the words for the first time even though he knew that he had loved Spencer for a while now. 

"I love you, too," Spencer said, and he pressed his chin into Aaron's chest as he pushed himself up to scoot up to get a kiss. Aaron's hand in his hair fell to his back, so Aaron reached down to grab Spencer's ass and haul him over to where Spencer was on top of him. Aaron realized that Spencer had grabbed not his own sleep pants but Aaron's. 

"Where did you go?" Aaron knew that Spencer didn't get into clothes to get out of bed unless he was going out of the bedroom. 

"Jack had the midnight munchies, so we snacked on some fruit from the fruit salad I cut up for breakfast tomorrow morning. We drank some water, and then I covered him up. Maggie was asleep at her desk in her room, so I ushered her into the actual bed." Spencer smiled down at Aaron before leaning in for more kisses. Aaron gave into the kisses and gladly raised his hips up when after getting Aaron's sleep pants off of his body, Spencer worked on the underwear that Aaron had stripped down to, not bothered enough to get actual sleep pants, unlike Spencer who usually slept naked. 

Aaron heard the sliding of the door, but Spencer didn't drop the lube onto the bed yet. Just getting the drawer open so that he could get to the lube it seemed when he was ready. 

Sex had been very natural for them to slip into and it had happened that first date night that they had. Sometimes, Aaron spoke with his body instead of words when words failed him, but he knew that their relationship wasn't built on sex, even if they enjoyed it a great deal. 

"So," Spencer said as he sat up again, bracing his hands on Aaron's chest and looking down at him with the grin still on his face. "I saw that your guest room is empty when I went up to change my shirt before we went out. I also saw the markings for the placement of Maggie Lynn's bed and desk in there. Something you want to ask me?" 

"And how exactly would you answer if I did ask you?" Aaron asked. 

"I guess you'll have to just ask me if you want an answer." 

"I want you and Maggie Lynn to move in with me and Jack, will you?" Aaron asked. 

"Yes, we will," Spencer said, and he sealed his words with a kiss. Aaron wrapped his arms around Spencer's shoulders and kept him there, wrapping his legs around him next. Aaron didn't want to let him go, not even to get the lube at the moment. He wanted the closeness of what Spencer being right there gave him. 

Aaron didn't want this to ever end, and he was going to make sure that they were all happy so that it wouldn't ever end. 

# The End


End file.
